Clean Breaks
by karebear
Summary: "I was lying when I said I believe in clean breaks." Joker-centric ME2 prequel. Hinted Joker/femShep.
1. Chapter 1

_But you're making sure I was lying when I said I can leave this behind  
I was lying when I said I believe in clean breaks  
- _Dashboard Confessional

His fingers twitch and drum a quick cadence on the cheap table next to his thinly disguised hospital bed. The bright pillowcases and thick quilt can't change the awkward angle or the flimsy plastic bars that highlight exactly where he's stuck. They must think he's stupid. Joker scowls. The familiar hazy fog of painkillers pumping through his system has mostly faded now, leaving sharp clarity in its wake. He pinpoints the lingering sting of the deep needle puncture where the IV had been removed... recently. He runs his finger lightly over the mark and hums, glaring at the bright fluorescent lights and cheap off-white paint that will never manage to hide the harsh metallic walls. Hospitals always reckon that the soft pastels will be comforting, somehow, ease the healing process, but he grew up on Arcturus and the sharp rivets and cold utility of space station construction signals "home" to him. He knows it's there, under the peeling patch jobs, easy enough to see. He itches at the grooves in the wall like he itches the leg that feels stiff underneath the cast that immobilizes it. The minor breaks have all healed; it's only this one - the bad one - left. He knows from experience that it will spike to a level of agony just under unbearable if he puts any pressure on it by attempting to stand or walk. He stares at the shadows chased into the corner of the ceiling and considers attempting anyway.

He's never been one to hurt himself on purpose; it happens enough by _mistake. _Simple things that people take for granted have landed him in places like this one far more often than he wants to count.

He can't sit still in this place anymore. He can't move either. And the only thing that hurts worse than his shattered bones are the memories that chase him in the darkness. Physical pain is an easy distraction, and one he knows far too intimately to be easily intimidated by it.

The doctors that follow him are more than just the ones who are interested in fixing his broken body. He's stonewalled dozens of psychologists since they pulled him from the escape pod over Alchera, since Shepard's death had been first rumored and then confirmed by the ANN reports on the monitor they'd pulled down from his wall with a muted argument they'd probably figured he couldn't hear. Wires still dangle from the hole they'd left behind. Joker stares at them and taps his fingers up and down again. It's a repetitive, thoughtless motion, but motion helps to calm him, makes him feel like he's _going _somewhere even if he isn't.

He stills his hand just long enough to fumble for the datapad at the edge of the table. He catches it just before it falls and pulls it toward him, but no matter how many times he swipes his finger across the screen or keys in his access code, it only flashes black and spits him back to the main login entry. The frustration is enough to make him scream. The scream brings not the nurse he was expecting but a man in crisp dress blues.

Joker swallows hard and salutes. People give him crap for his attitude all the time, but he still can't shake off the ingrained necessity of protocol, respect for the chain of command. Not to mention the fact that Captain Anderson _does _always sound slightly pissed off when they talk. If he's here, it can't be for any good reason. So he relaxes only slightly when Anderson gives him a grim nod and sags into the seat next to his bed.

"I'm locked out, Captain," he says softly, pushing the datapad toward the other man.

"I know, son," Anderson replies, without looking at it.

Joker frowns. Anderson's always pulled out the paternalistic card with _Shepard_, but with him? "What's going on?"

Anderson recites a canned speech about integrating humanity into the wider galactic community more fully, about re-evaluating assets now that the Alliance Fleet no longer has to fend for itself, about stepping up to take their place as leaders. He even manages to make it sound half-genuine. But Joker scowls, seeing clear through the bullshit. "You can't do this," he screams, as though it's Anderson's fault. Well maybe it is. These new orders haven't gone into effect yet, so until further notice he's still regarding the Captain as his C.O. "I'm the best damned pilot in the Fleet and you _know _it! You can't ground me!"

"You're not _grounded_," Anderson demands, sounding tired. "You've been reassigned."

"To Arcturus," Joker reiterates. It means that even after he gets out of this hospital he'll be _stuck _here. "And Kaidan's pushing files around on the Citadel."

"As am I."

"Yeah, but that's different. You're -"

"Military advisor to our esteemed first Human Councilor Udina. And about to be promoted to Admiral, too. You'll be at the ceremony, won't you?"

"Um..."

Anderson smiles, but Joker can hear the bitterness in his words, because it matches what he feels exactly. "I promise you that my new position is not any less a punishment than yours."

"This isn't right," Joker demands. Anderson nods, agrees, but says nothing. It isn't enough. "You _stole _the Normandy! Surely you're not going to roll over now. Let them..." _Shepard_ _died_, whispers the voice in Joker's head, and that whisper brings it all back: the memories, the screaming. His still-fractured leg throbs in time with the guilt and the grief, spiking up sharper as the medicines that had once dulled the pain continue to fade out of his system. Shepard died a hero, saved the Citadel and the lives of the ungrateful bastards on the Council, lost dozens of Alliance ships to do it. "We can't just let them pretend that the Normandy - that _Shepard_... people _died_, Captain," Joker finally manages to choke out. "People died, and they _mattered_."

The expression on Anderson's face softens to a sympathetic little frown. In this moment, Joker can begin to understand why Shepard trusted him at the start, in orbit over Mindoir when she was just a frightened kid.

"It's only for a little while," Anderson finally says. His voice is soft, but determined. "They can shove us into the darkest corners they can find, but they won't shut us up, will they?"

Joker just stares at him, barely refraining from rolling his eyes. This tacit permission to raise hell isn't enough, not when Anderson would've given Shepard a whole fleet if she asked. But he nods. "Yeah. Okay, Captain."

Anderson pats him on the shoulder and tells him to cheer up. But he says it with a voice that even clueless-when-it-comes-to-people Joker can read: tired and broken. Repeating it only because he knows it's what's expected of him.

If he were less useless, he'd know what to say, but all Joker can do is watch the soon-to-be Admiral drag himself out of the hospital room. When he's alone again, he glances down at the datapad, a dysfunctional brick in his hand. Joker hurls the pad across the room, and smiles in grim satisfaction as it shatters. Grounded. It's not the first time it's happened, obviously. It's not even _uncommon_.

Despite what he tells the officers about his condition not impacting job performance, the truth is that complications arising from Vrolik's Syndrome can easily knock him out of action for weeks at a time. He's a liability groundside in a far more significant way than most pilots. He has to be exceptionally careful on shore leave to the point where he goes out of his way to _avoid _the vacations everyone else looks forward to. He's used to sitting things out, watching from the sidelines, being asked again and again to prove himself. He rises to the challenge every time. But this is different. The Alliance doesn't want him anymore - not him, not _any _of them. The Normandy was Shepard's ship, and without her, they're all lost.


	2. Chapter 2

It's not enough to put on his dress uniform (no baseball cap, not this time) and take a military shuttle (not _his _ship, not even a borrowed one) to the Citadel. He goes to celebrate Anderson's promotion, the quiet retirement of an old man. He goes to look appropriately heroic during the official memorial service for Shepard. He sits there, looking pathetic in his chair while everyone else stands, but he's glad of it for once, because it gives him a chance to hide. He curls his hand into a fist and closes his eyes and he can't shake off the memory of her arms around him as she carried him to safety and then she _died_, and _it's his fault_.

He notices Kaidan sneaking a glance in his direction at one point. He quickly finds something else to look at. They both teased each other _so often _about flirting with their C.O., but Joker knows it had never gone any further than that, not for either of them. It never _will_. He's happy to go back to Arcturus without talking to Alenko.

They have him running sims for the new kids, easy work, and easy to lose himself in. When he's off-duty, he observes the station from various chairs in various lounges; it's changed and not changed. It isn't home anymore, that much is certain. His family is gone, out on Tiptree, farming. He'd been there only once, a couple days of shore leave, before... back when he was still the pilot of the Normandy. They send messages here and there, his mother worries and asks gentle but probing questions about how he's feeling. Just like when he was young, he ignores those. The vid-clips of his kid sister laughing and telling stupid stories, those he looks forward to. He keeps his skills as sharp as the computers allow, and hangs around the docks like he'd done as a kid, until the pitying looks get to be too much for him.

He'd earned a couple of medals for his actions at the Battle of the Citadel, but they're just collecting dust at the bottom of his footlocker now. He won't wear them as long as the Council insists they are meaningless. He takes them out, sometimes, in the middle of the night, and holds them in his hand. He traces the sharp edges, and tilts the geometric shapes back and forth to reflect the soft glow of the emergency lights high above his head. He knows Shepard had acquired an impressive collection of honors like these. She'd never made a big deal about them. She rarely made a big deal about things. He can remember her laughing as he stumbled through trying not to sound like an idiot in front of her.

He'd always been so careful about choosing what to say, calculating how people would probably react. Every word out of his mouth was part of a plan. But not with Shepard. With her... he could just talk. She didn't care about his psych reports and he didn't care about hers, and she never asked him why he never slept, and they drank coffee or booze and every time she came up to the cockpit she stole his hat. Every single time.

He swipes his finger across the screen of the datapad that's been unlocked, finally, after weeks, now that the techs have finally gotten around to wiping off anything that might contradict the spin story the Alliance is telling: they're at war with the Geth. There is no such thing as Reapers. Joker swallows a sudden panic that they might've taken... no. The file is still there where he'd left it, buried under a bunch of kids' games that occupy him through the boring hours of deep space. Her smile glows out from beneath messy hair tangled underneath his hat, and he'll be the first to admit it looks better on her than on him. She's curled up in the copilot's seat - she'd fallen asleep there more than once. He imagines he can still feel the imprint her fingers had left behind in the armrests. He can still smell her shampoo - some fruity thing she'd gotten off the Citadel, not the standard stuff they have in the crew showers. He imagines he can still taste the recycled air of the Normandy if he tries. It's different from whatever's pumping through the larger environment of Arcturus. It helps if he closes his eyes, but it never helps for long, because in the dark he remembers that the Normandy was blasted apart over the skies of Alchera. If one thing is the same, it's the fact that he still doesn't sleep.

He snaps the file closed and starts to drag himself out of bed, several hours too early. The trill of an incoming message alert stops him. He's expecting something from Command: orders, an assignment transfer, maybe a file on some new trainee. Cerberus is the last thing he's expecting.

Oh, it's not like they sign their name on it directly, it's all coded numbers and layers upon layers of encrypts. But he recognizes the style of the wording, some of the fragments of location codes are familiar. He'd spent hours batting questions back and forth with Shepard, listening to her scream about those bastards, watched her fall apart after learning that Akuze was much more than just a freak accident. He tries to imagine he'd helped put her back together after that, but he knows the truth: he didn't. He never knows what to do when people need help, not really. If she hadn't let the _reality _of watching her entire squad ripped to pieces destroy her, certainly the memory couldn't shake her for long. She'd gone and shot up a few unlucky bastards who were in her way and came back and got drunk enough that he could beat her in Skyllian Five, although he'd let her win anyway.

He wonders. He wonders and he doesn't trust and he knows he shouldn't answer. Getting tangled up with Cerberus, in _any _way, is the _last _thing Shepard would want. But he reads the message: short as it is, just a few words, over and over again. He can't ignore it. He deletes it, but he can't ignore it. Hope and fear tangle in his chest like a heavy weight. Hope. They never found a body.

_How could they, in __space_, _idiot? _But there were some, in the wreckage, under the drifting snows. He knows that although he wishes that he didn't. Not hers, though.

He sends back a short confirmation and spends the next few hours waffling over an official resignation notice that is nearly as short. He hits send before he can stop himself.

The response is almost instantaneous, and not just text, this time. A fully three-dimensional video coalesces out of pixels of light, projecting from his tiny screen. It hovers there, on the bed where he'd set the 'pad down. Joker frowns down at it.

"Do you know anything about Cerberus?" the holographic image asks him in resonant tones, sounding very serious. "The mythology?"

Not very much, but he reads up on it, scouring the extranet for stories that were ancient for centuries before humanity ever discovered the relays. Cerberus guards the gates of hell.

"Shepard's dead," he announces, the next time the self-described Illusive Man locks him into a communications chamber for a chat he's not allowed to decline.

"Ah, but you know what they say, Mr. Moreau: 'Death is but the next great adventure.'"

The blue light shining out from the man's cybernetic eyes cast an eerie glow that twists his obviously false smile. It makes Joker's stomach squirm. He quashes the feeling and looks right into those robotic orbs. He refuses to be pushed around. Not by the Alliance and _definitely _not by Cerberus.

"That's bullshit," he spits. He searches for the Illusive Man's face for some hint of the truth, but there is no humanity reflected there. "You're serious," he finally whispers, so softly that he is almost certain the mic relaying his words across the unfathomable distances of space won't pick it up. But the holographic image nods.

"Absolutely serious, Mr. Moreau. Of that, I assure you."

If there is just the slightest chance, he has to take it. He was willing to die, once upon a time, to go down with his ship, but Shepard wouldn't let him. He won't let her either. He can't.


	3. Chapter 3

"Can I see her?"

"She isn't here, Mr. Moreau."

Joker scowls. His hand wraps tighter around the armrest of the lounge chair in the middle of the officer's mess. This Cerberus base is even more restrictive than Arcturus. Suspicious glares and whispers follow him everywhere. He grabs for his cup of lukewarm, congealing military-style coffee and gulps it down. 'Mr. Moreau.' He hates being called that; it reminds him of humorless teachers in the navy brat schools he'd found boring as hell as a child. Of course, what else are they supposed to call him? Joker? They're not friends.

"Where is she?" he asks softly. The artificially perfect woman holds his gaze without blinking. Her shoulders are tense, she blows out an impatient sigh. "Dammit, you can't just bring me here and not tell me anything!" Joker snaps. "I need..."

"Be patient," Miranda Lawson advises coolly. She gives his hand a gentle squeeze that is probably supposed to be reassuring, but it's clear the action is unfamiliar to her. Joker pulls his hand away immediately. He wraps his fingers tightly around his coffee mug and stares into it as though it can give him some answers. Lawson's high-heeled boots click loudly as she walks away.

"Is she... okay?" he finally asks. He doesn't expect an answer, but he can't swallow the question anymore. Even if it is a stupid question, so non-specific as to be meaningless. He's not sure he _wants _a specific answer.

"She's alive," Miranda replies. Joker glances up, because it's the first time he's heard even a hint of nervousness or strain in the woman's voice. But she's already started walking again. He nods to the empty chair across from him, finishes the coffee, and drags himself through the chokingly claustrophobic halls of the Cerberus station, his braces holding him up but offering none of the support he actually _needs_.

He doesn't understand what he's doing here, not really. He doesn't understand why they want him, he can't explain to himself the kind of twisted web he's gotten tangled up in. He's never been a religious person - no one in his family ever was. They were scientists, engineers. They believed in cause and effect, trial and error, physics and biology and mathematics and calculable limits. When the doctors told him he'd never be able to walk, he understood _why_, and when he forced himself to watch with a clinical detachment as Alliance Command reported Shepard's death, he understood that too. People don't _survive_ being ejected into space without oxygen. It doesn't happen. _Knowing this _makes things _worse, _fills his head with spirals of questions and fears that he can't begin to disentangle. Uncertainty needles at his brain, keeps him awake.

But they let him fly. Easy runs, cargo hauls, they keep him blind and his routes are slaved to a computer so that he can't make off with their ships while they aren't looking. Cerberus is _always _looking. It's an even more insulting waste of his skills than the Alliance using him to train their noobs. But even knowing that, he can't help _enjoying _it. Just a little bit, he tells himself, because if he's going to be doing it anyway, what sense does it make to hide behind a wall of bitterness and anger? He allows himself to relax, just slightly, into the comfortable embrace of leather seats, his fingers flying over the controls, his body settling into familiar responses to the awe-inspiring panoramas of pinprick stars sprinkled through deep space, swirling nebulas, the quiet of a ship drifting on autopilot, half-asleep. There is beauty out here, in the dark, and sitting in the middle of it, he can't help but be aware of his _aliveness_. The empty silence does nothing to keep the questions at bay, but it gives him a way to handle them.

Time passes: first in hours, then days, and weeks, long enough that he stops waiting for a response from Alliance Command, stops looking over his shoulder every second, settles into the routine habits of daily life in a paramilitary organization that pays little attention to things like protocol or regulation. He listens to angry rants in the common areas, even joins a few. The people here are good guys, most of them ex-Alliance who'd grown tired of the bureaucracy too large to do anything more than ignore those human colonists they claimed to represent. Out on the ground, away from the naval bases, the humanity that the Council sees on the Citadel means nothing. They pander to politics and _do _nothing. Joker thinks about the medals buried in his footlocker and surprises himself by agreeing with these Cerberus idealists.

When he realizes how much he's fitting in, how many hours or even _days_ he lets pass without feeling that hollow ache of guilt, without thinking about Shepard, the weight of reality immediately settles back onto his shoulders, and it's enough to crush him. He drowns it out with the alcohol that Cerberus doesn't even bother hiding. They figure if you're dumb enough to drink while on duty and fuck something up enough to be noticed, it's on you.

Joker is on his third beer, angry at everything and utterly sick of being told to be _patient_. He never gets to _decide_ to talk to the Illusive Man, but he knows he's important to the Cerberus leader, if only because of his connection to Shepard. So when he starts trying to pry for details about the Lazarus Cell, it means an almost instantaneous comm request, the inordinately obtrusive holographic display. The Illusive Man is unnaturally bland and calm, though far from forgettable. He pointedly refuses to answer any questions about Shepard, and steers the conversation to other topics.

"We can help you, you know," he says simply. His eyes linger on Joker's braces, as though it weren't obvious what he meant.

Joker can _feel _the man's unsettling gaze, somehow, even over the vast distances of space. He snorts. "Yeah? You clearly don't know me as well as you think, big guy. I've turned down these offers before."

"And yet I'm not talking about a cumbersome exoskeleton or any of the blundering attempts at surgery the Alliance offered you," the Man says smugly. His arrogance and conceit rub every cell in Joker's body the wrong way, yet if he's noticed the darkness of Joker's returning glare, he simply ignores it and carries on. Joker gets the feeling he is a bystander rather than a participant in the very one-sided conversation. "Fixing the human body is a relatively simple thing, after thousands of years of study. We're very, _very _good at it. Cerberus teams are the best of the best. We can harden your bones, strengthen them... cybernetic nanites to inject collagen, working _with _your body, part of it... no side effects. You'll be able to walk. To _run_. We can give you the ability to function at peak physical condition for a man your age. You'd pass any test the Alliance might care to throw at you."

A chill runs down Joker's spine as he lets the words wash over him. He knows his answer, or thinks he does, but the implications of the offer still make him squirm. He has always been acutely tuned to the signals of his own body, cautious of every minor stress and strain. He knows the ease with which discomfort can suddenly explode into pain. He understands shock, and trauma. He knows more than any pilot ought to about blood and first aid and the rules of military medicine. And he remembers with stomach-churning anxiety the images he's watched through Shepard's HUD feed as she trawled through Cerberus labs before, the pure, venomous hatred in her voice as she came down, shaking, from the adrenaline high of those missions.

She'd wrapped a blanket around herself and curled up in the empty co-pilot's chair in the heart of the Normandy's night shift, asking pointed questions he'd never been able to deflect about the nature of evil in the universe. She'd wake up suddenly from nightmares of Akuze that left her sweaty and shaken, and he could see the darkness reflected in her haunted eyes in those moments: he understood how the rumors got started, why people were uneasy around her, how they figured, without ever getting to know her, that she was dangerously unstable, constantly on the edge of losing her grip completely. They never saw how quickly she shook off those memories though, flashing him a teasing smile, reaching for another drink. Shepard had never judged him by what he _couldn't _do. She'd been his C.O., sure, but the first one that hadn't made him feel like he was constantly trying to prove himself. He never had to justify his presence on her ship. The Normandy was _theirs_.

There are a thousand reasons why turning down Cerberus' offer is a good idea, but only one that matters: if they are telling him the truth, Shepard belongs to them. But he doesn't. And he won't sacrifice any part of himself that might weaken his ability to protect her. He will give nothing to Cerberus, owe them nothing, they will have no leash with which to control him. He's here for Shepard. Nothing else.

"No thanks," he says harshly. It's a tone of voice the Alliance medics would recognize all too well.

The Illusive Man stares him down. Joker wonders if he might try to force it. But he couldn't. He has no illusions that Cerberus wouldn't use him for their medical experiments if they thought it suited their needs. He knows, with an unsettling certainty that he cannot quite ignore, that they do exactly that sort of thing all the time. But they need him because of his connection to Shepard, and he _knows_, although it has never _exactly _been put into words, that that is why he is here, and that the Illusive Man will do nothing to jeopardize his loyalty, tentative as it is.

"Very well, Mr. Moreau," the Illusive Man sighs. "We simply want what's best for you."

"Don't insult my intelligence," Joker snaps.

A smile quirks at the edge of the Illusive Man's lips. "Perhaps you're right. I suppose it would be more accurate to say we'd like you at your best. For Shepard's sake."

The hologram snaps out, leaving Joker alone and feeling as though Cerberus has been crawling through his brain. The feeling only intensifies when he drags himself into his small private cabin to find someone fiddling through his few belongings like she owns them. At the sound of the door sliding open, Dr. Karin Chakwas turns and gives him a tired smile. "I hope you've been remembering your medications, Jeff."

"What're you doing here?" he asks darkly.

"I think I'm offended," she replies immediately, not sounding offended in the least.

"I'm serious!" Joker insists, flustered by herpresence. He'd never have imagined he'd come to _care_ about the medbay staff he is forced by necessity to interact with, but Chakwas is familiar, she has a way of following him from posting to posting that can't possibly be coincidental. She reminds him of his mother in all the worst ways, and damn it all to hell, he'd _worried _about her. "It's desertion, being here. Treason. You can't just _quit _the military whenever you feel like it." Especially not to run off to a black-ops group turned terrorist network.

"I can't, but you can?"

"I wrote a letter," he replies, defensively. He sits down on the bed, wishing he were strong enough that he didn't have to. But Chakwas has seen him looking a hell of a lot weaker than this.

"And I left a lovely stack of research all ready to be published, stamped with the Mars Naval Medical Center's logo. Not a bad parting gift, really."

"They call you here for her, or for me?"

Dr. Chakwas does not try to pretend that she doesn't know what he's talking about. It's one of the things he's always respected about her: she doesn't play games with her patients, and she's smart enough to keep up with them. She leans back against the wall, and shrugs.

"Cerberus has resources, Jeff. You should take advantage of them."

"You think I should do it?"

"You know as well as I do that a procedure like this can't be given without consent," the doctor responds smoothly. Joker raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah? What about Shepard? Did she get to consent?" Doctor Chakwas sighs. Joker thinks he sees the subtle shake of her head. They both know the answer. "The _Lazarus Project_," he finally mutters. "You honestly think it's _true_, what they're saying? They _brought her back to life."_

"I don't _know_," Karin Chakwas admits.

"Because it _can't be_ _done_, right? _Fuck_, if anybody was half that good..." he nearly screams in frustration as he waves his hand over his useless legs and the braces latched around them. She dances around the question he's really asking the same way the Illusive Man had, steering the conversation back to him, as if _he _matters.

"The procedure's good, Jeff," she tells him. "Legitimate research, the backing of the medical community. _I'll _be the one to perform it. I won't let Cerberus touch you." Joker glances up and notes the possessive fire in the doctor's eyes. "Do you trust me?" she asks.

He thinks about the hours he's spent pushing away her painful injections, her good-natured taunting as she watched him like a hawk to _make sure_ he swallowed his drug cocktails: pills by the handful. She'd been one of the few who never seemed annoyed about taking the time to explain the x-rays and scan images to him; pointing out subtle differences that showed where treatments were making a difference he couldn't _feel _when his weakened bones fractured anyway.

"It'll work?" he asks, ashamed by the raw hope that he can't quite keep contained. He's spent years saying it doesn't matter, that his skills and intelligence don't require physical strength. But the truth remains that he's _wanted _this since he was a kid, that every morning he wakes up wondering what it would be like to go through a day without hurting. "I'll be able to walk?"

"Not right away. And not without difficulty. But yes, Jeff. I'm certain you will."

He nods, tracing his finger over the pages and pages of medical notes on the datapad she's handed him. "Do it."

"I'll set it up."

Dr. Chakwas wastes no time doing exactly that. Joker wonders briefly if she's as bored as he is. He trusts her, but in this unfamiliar place, where he's promised to never let his guard down, he almost backs out at the last minute. He's undergone procedures that required anesthesia before, from the time he was young enough that they did it with lullabies and a soft stuffed toy for him to squeeze. It's usually the only way they can fix his broken bones, rebuild them, without the pain reaching levels that would qualify as torture. He _has _gone through surgery, in several different naval hospitals both before and after joining the Alliance, despite what he told the Illusive Man. Those metal grafts and collagen injections are what keep him mostly functional instead of dead. A couple hundred years ago, people born with his condition rarely survived their first year. So he understands the risks, and he understands exactly how much he owes to the medical professionals who take him apart and put him back together on a regular basis. He still fights a primal panic as he feels the drug begin to pull him under. Dr. Chakwas squeezes his hand and soothes him to sleep. "Don't worry, Jeffrey," she promises. "I'm looking out for both of you."


	4. Chapter 4

Days and weeks go by, passing in a blurry, painful haze of post-op medications and therapy. Joker scowls at Dr. Chakwas as she sits across from him in one of the comfortable armchairs Cerberus provides in the lounge areas of their stations. She sips her coffee casually from an actual ceramic mug, and acts like a friend, not a doctor. Another sharp needle of distress spikes through artificially reinforced bones, and Joker draws in a shaky breath, wishing for the hundredth time that he'd never allowed the doctor to do this to him. His braces lean against the wall nearby, within reach, but he's not wearing them. He doesn't need them nearly as often, now. Karrin Chakwas gives him a soft, knowing smile. He shifts in his chair and chokes back a sarcastic quip.

The atmosphere of the base is charged with a sense of anticipation, a powerful awareness of _something coming_, change heavy in the air. There is a growing sense of dread and discomfort surrounding the increasingly common reports of colonies disappearing without warning or a single clue left behind. Joker knows that Alliance Command has to be hearing the same reports; but they are doing nothing. Humanity's representatives on the Citadel are equally silent. The Cerberus soldiers start looking to him as though he can Save The Day, somehow. They begin to ask questions about everything that died a long time ago: Saren. The Normandy. And Shepard.

The day she arrives, Joker knows exactly what is happening, because there is a lot of cursing and fear and running around without logic. People cling to guns, and sporadic bursts of radio communication suddenly cut off paint a blurry picture of an attack on the Lazarus Cell station somewhere far away. Joker's stomach clenches with familiar anxiety as he waits, but this, more than anything, proves to him that every word Cerberus has told him is true: Shepard is alive.

He limps around the corner into the docking bay where she waits, arms crossed over her armored chest, hair a tangled mess. She looks tired, too pale, too thin, slowed down by the pain of injuries that hastily-slathered on medigel could only do so much to fix. The armor she's got on is unfamiliar: it's still black N7 kit, the bloodstripe is visible under scorched rips where laser weaponry had scored a direct hit. But the silhouette is wrong; it's all mismatched components of heavy plastoid, closer to a ground infantry suit than the stealth-infiltration gear he's used to seeing her in. Which is just as well. He knows that the light armor issued to biotic squads is reinforced with mesh weaves that can deflect fire just as well as standard plates, if anything gets through their barrier in the first place. But it still made him nervous to watch her walk out in something that looked like little more than pajamas.

Shepard seems to agree. He watches her fiddle with the new gear and almost rolls his eyes, because he knows she'll be spending all her time playing with mods and swapping out pieces to create combinations no manufacturer ever intended. He trusts her enough not to accidentally misplace her extra ammo in a critical moment, but it's probably for the best she doesn't work for the Alliance anymore. Requisitions would have a fit if they knew how casually she destroys her gear.

She glances up, and his breath catches in his throat, because when she meets his eyes, she is the same. Two years melt away in the space of two heartbeats.

Joker lets go of the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and the grin that breaks onto his face is genuine, a wash of relief that matches the joy he sees reflected in Shepard. She flashes him a shy smile, and looks beyond him, staring in open-mouthed wonder at the ship sitting behind him, docked in standby mode.

"It's good to be home, huh, Commander?"

Everything about the Normandy SR-2 is familiar and beautiful, even when all they can see is a silhouette and running lights. Joker's been all over the ship already, inhaling the fresh paint, new upholstery, cleaning chemicals, metal that somehow still smells like a welding torch. He hasn't slept since The Illusive Man ordered his minions to find him, in the quiet middle of the night. "They only just told me," he says softly, carefully watching Shepard for any hint of a reaction. Because this, maybe more than anything else, is a solid, empty, just slightly _wrong_ manifestation of just how deeply Cerberus has infected their deepest memories and hopes. Joker knows how long it takes to build a ship from scratch: this perfectly-rendered copy of a blasted-apart wreck was built only for them: a dead woman and her broken crew. The Normandy is theirs, but this is not the Normandy. It is the Normandy corrupted by Cerberus, and Joker limps behind Shepard as she inspects the ship. Her eyes dart from one thing to another, taking it all in. She barely seems to breathe.

"Just like old times, huh?" he ventures cautiously, and she nods. But her footsteps falter as she follows him into the cockpit.

"Do you really trust the Illusive Man?" she whispers. Joker turns to look at her, _really _look, and he notices things that were never there before: shadows and scars, and fragility. He shakes his head, not trusting his voice to answer. Shepard holds his gaze for a moment.

"I... I'm glad it's you," she finally says. "Thank you."

Joker clears his throat awkwardly and settles into the thick cushioned leather of his pilot's seat and _tries _to get comfortable. It's just another difference that makes him squirm. He tells himself that the Alliance doesn't care about him, doesn't care about Shepard either. He spins the chair in a lazy circle and slows to a stop.

Across from him, Shepard lowers herself into the waiting co-pilot's chair. She still fits there. She doesn't _quite_ touch him, and she doesn't quite snuggle up in the chair either, but for now, it's close enough. Joker watches as she traces her finger lazily up and down the smooth curve of the chair's arm. She glances up at him, for just a heartbeat. "You're walking," she says softly.

He shrugs. "Yeah. You weren't the only one stuck in a hospital recen..." he trails off immediately when she freezes, curling into herself, so _obviously_ not looking at him.

_Stupid! _he curses himself. _Stupid, stupid! _He reaches his hand out toward her, without thinking about it. "Sorry," he whispers. "I didn't mean... I shouldn't have..."

Shepard looks up again, and reaches out to grab his hand. It feels good there, solid and warm. "It's okay," she tells him, with that same familiar determination, that _command-voice_. "It's not your fault." Now it's his turn to look away, out into the empty black of space with its pinprick-light stars. "It's _not_," Shepard repeats, more forcefully.

"Yeah," he agrees tonelessly. "Sure, Commander."

There is a startlingly loud chime, and a humanoid voice begins to emerge from behind hidden speakers. Joker glares at the small blue sphere that has popped up just behind him, grinding his teeth with every syllable the artificially pleasant voice projects. He knew about this, but it still grates on him. No. He doesn't trust the Illusive Man, or any of his electronic or flesh-and-blood spies. He throws a helpless glance at Shepard, but she only shrugs.

"AI could be useful," she mutters, half-heartedly.

"Not _Cerberus _AI," Joker demands.

Shepard snorts softly, and Joker is amazed to see a tiny smile playing on her face. "You're telling me you'd accept it if it was Alliance tech?" she asks pointedly.

"No," he admits, after half a second squirming under her intense gaze. "But come _on_, Commander! It won't let me do _anything_." The stupid computer swears it does not helm the ship, it will not overstep its boundaries, it will not take over his job. He squirms anyway, hating the feeling of monitors feeding his every move to someone else, higher up and far away. He sounds like a whining toddler, and he's aware of it. But he can _feel _the Cerberus eyes on him in what's supposed to be _his _safe haven, and it prickles at the back of his neck. "I can't _think _with this thing watching me."

"Privacy mode!" Shepard snaps.

There are several seconds of awkward silence, almost as if the computer is _deciding _whether or not to follow the order. Finally, the blue sphere disappears. "Acknowledged, Commander Shepard. Logging you out."

Joker raises an eyebrow, and Shepard smiles back. Despite all the differences and changes, it feels the same.


End file.
